


and hide me among the graves

by Maiden_of_the_Moon



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Buried Avatar Martin Blackwood, End Avatar Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Inspired by Fanart, Language of Flowers, M/M, Major Character Undeath, Minor Character Death, No beta we kayak like Tim, Poetry, avatars gonna avatar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 14:20:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29279850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maiden_of_the_Moon/pseuds/Maiden_of_the_Moon
Summary: They shouldn’t behavinga funeral. Martin’s fatheris not dead.“Absent” is not dead. “Missing” is not dead. “Lost” is not dead.“You’re right,” says the man who leans against a headstone. “About your father, I mean.”
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 26
Kudos: 78





	and hide me among the graves

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: No.
> 
> Author’s Note: [ Spiderjars’ End!Jon](https://spiderjars.tumblr.com/post/642377023436800000/jashion-jon-fashion-todays-subject-is-endjon) killed me with a Look in broad daylight. 
> 
> Tags/Warnings: AU… of some kind. Terminus Avatar Jon and (end-game) Buried Avatar Martin. Poetry references and copious use of the Language of Flowers (see end notes for translations). Death. And undeath. Written, poorly edited, and posted within the span of a few hours.

\---

and hide me among the graves

\---

_And mother dear, when the sun has set  
And the pale kirk grass waves,  
Then carry me through the dim twilight  
And hide me among the graves._

 _—Elizabeth Siddal_

Martin Blackwood comes into the world on a gloomy Wednesday afternoon, his sobs woefully loud and inconsolable. The rain that falls outside the hospital windows is the sort that renders an umbrella useless, and his mother is accidentally delivered a bunch of lemon balm and tansies, rather than the daisies that Martin’s father had ordered. 

Martin does not learn about poetry or the language of flowers until far later in life. But the day that he does, his first thought is: 

_Ah. It all makes sense, now._

-

(In nursery school, the students help to plant a garden. It is Martin’s first time playing in the dirt for a _reason_ , and he loves it, loves it, _loves it_ , until the day the zinnias push free of cloying earth and burst into bloom like so many old explosions. Like so many shattered skulls.

That is a Wednesday, too.)

-

Martin’s father is not dead.

The people gathered here— the businessfolk, the family friends; the aunts and uncles and their unfamiliar offspring— they all think that he is too young to understand. They assume him ignorant, or naive, or lost in throes of childish denial. His mother is at the end of her rope, sick of Martin’s attitude about the funeral. 

But they shouldn’t be _having_ a funeral. Martin’s father _is not dead_. 

“Absent” is not dead. “Missing” is not dead. “Lost” is not dead. 

“You’re right,” says the man who leans against a headstone. Martin does not recognize him, does not know his name, but he could say the same about virtually everyone else in the kirkyard. Everyone but his mother, who is tired of dealing with him. No one else is talking to him. They are all angry at him, as far as Martin can tell, for being stubborn, rather than sad. He would not believe he has this man’s attention, either, if not for the way that his eyes catch Martin’s when he clarifies, “About your father, I mean.” 

Martin blinks, tearless. Confused, though he is not certain about what. Being right? Being believed? Who this man is? Had Martin seen him in the church? “I am?” 

“Your father is not dead,” the man atop Jonathan Sims’ tombstone nods, crossing legs as long as a winter night. He is young in that old sort of way— like some of Martin’s uni-bound cousins— with a face the color of soil and hair the same silver as spider-spun silk. The sheen of it glints beneath his wide-brimmed hat, diaphanous in the midmorning chill. His smile is softer than moss. “But then,” he murmurs, sympathetic, “death is not the worst fate that can befall a man.” 

Warm loam meets cool air. Mists rise from mounds of upturned earth, gossamer and pearly, and Martin thinks of Victorian spirits.

“Oh," he says. Frowns. Glancing down, he considers the bouquet he has already half-strangled: a blinding mix of wans and pales and void-white flowers. Much like the questions that bloom in Martin’s mind, the countless petals overlap, melding together to form a single, indistinct mass. They are pretty and pointless. Transitory. 

His curiosity withers away. 

With clumsy fingers, Martin pulls from his snarl of stargazer lilies and hyacinths a single chrysanthemum. It looks a bit pathetic, separated from its posy. Still, he extends it like an offering. 

“This is for you,” Martin announces. “Thank you.” 

“For me?” The man who sits on Jonathan Sims’ grave startles delicately. His eyes— black as pits— trace the contours of the gift, considering it with an astonishment that borders on suspicion. “Whatever for?” 

Martin shrugs dramatically enough to wrinkle his suit. “For saying I’m right. For being the only honest grown up.” 

At this, the man’s lips purse. Painted nails dig into the lichen that blanket his headstone, as if to prevent himself from reaching out. 

“That truth wasn’t pretty,” he says, in a voice so low it could have come from six feet underground. Certainly, there is a depth to his words. But there is also a gentleness, and an apology that reaches Martin’s ears with the desperation of straining rhizomes. “Most of my truths aren’t.”

Still far more stubborn than sad, Martin lobs the slightly crushed flower at the stranger. Straightens, pleased, to see it fall across the man’s knee. 

“That just means you need this more,” he insists. 

“…indeed.” The man’s own grin spreads like a morning glory vine, crawling across the trellis of his façade. Following the brightness of Martin’s sunny beam. “I rather suppose I do,” he murmurs, attaching the mum to his lapel.

-

(Martin dreams.

He dreams in shades of bile and gore: poppy, rhododendron, and roses, roses, roses erupting from the ether in every shade of blood. They loom above him, petals parted like lids, and they watch him sleep. 

They watch him.

_They watch_ —)

-

Years pass, as years do. Martin does not quite forget that day— does not quite forget the man on the grave—, but neither does he recall the events of that morning in full.

He was a child, after all. He was silly. He was grieving. And memories are imperfect, impermanent things. They are a bit like flowers, in that regard: beautiful when fresh and possible to preserve, but never quite as vibrant, after. Never quite the same.

Martin likes the symbolism of that. He likes the allegory. Frankly, he likes a lot of pretentious, artsy things, stereotypes about his sexuality be damned. He owns cassette tapes, he writes poetry, and he is studying floral design. There are no riches in his future, sure, but he reminds his mother that there is more to life than money. Ostensibly. Probably. Though Martin wonders, sometimes— as his mother seizes and swears, cursing Martin and his father and her body in turn— if there is _anything_ to life at all. Any purpose or meaning beyond someday feeding the plants. 

(“ _Death is not the worst fate that can befall a man_ ,” he mutters to himself— a distant, unmoored thought— as he trims shoots off a potted rosemary. It is growing too well. All his plants grow too well. The verdure in his care never seems to die, not unless he kills it, and he _knows_ there is a reason for that, if only he could _remem_ —) 

Whatever. His father’s old Institute can call all it wants, can promise whatever jobs they have. No matter the paycheck, Martin isn’t interested. The only secrets he enjoys are the ones he shares between his customers and the flowers.

-

(The nightmares bifurcate as time goes on, pushing up and out and deeper into Martin’s subconscious. They thread through his organs, his limbs, in arterial patterns that pulse with icy ichor. He cannot remember their details after waking— can hardly hold onto their general shape— but he is haunted all the same by a formless, featureless face: a man who vomits heaps of white clover, while Martin’s teeth fall out of his jaw in a bitter cascade of almonds.)

-

A bundle of tarragon, yarrow, and heliotrope for a rustic anniversary posy.

Purple hyacinth and bluebell stalks wrapped in feathery ferns, intended to supplement an apology. 

Red, white, and pink camellia in a crystal-cut vase, bound for the desk of a secretly admired co-worker. 

Another arrangement of bleached-bone white. 

“Your mother _is_ dead,” the man says, and Martin nods absently, because there is no denying it, this time. 

Not that he was denying anything _last_ time. He _was_ right about his father. This man had said so. This same man, with his shroud-colored sleeves and winding sheet ascot. This _same man_ , who even-now wears a slightly-crushed chrysanthemum on his velveteen lapel. Martin does not bother trying to convince himself it is a different flower; he recognizes it. It has been beautifully kept. No— _impossibly_ kept. If he were to touch the mum’s mandalic petals, Martin knows they would feel like satin beneath his fingers. 

Martin tightens his fist. 

“At least she’s no longer in pain,” he mumbles. “And she doesn’t have to deal with…” _Me._ “…everything.”

The headstone before Martin is not his mother’s. Not anymore. He had been staring at it earlier, of course. He is sure of that. He _was_ staring at it, but then he _wasn’t_. And he isn’t sure where it has gone. Or where he is, for that matter. Beyond the obvious, anyway: a gloaming kirkyard, with hills that roll and willows that weep, with tombs and vaults and mausoleums, and an unageing man who lounges against the grave of Jonathan Sims. 

It is in that moment that it occurs to Martin that he ought to feel afraid. Probably. A smart person would be scared, surely. Terrified, even. But perhaps his mother was right, in the end, and he really is a fool, because Martin simply cannot muster the effort to feel anything at all. Why bother? What would fear accomplish? His parents would still be gone, he would still be… wherever he is. And the plants would still get their sweet revenge for all their plucked and eaten brethren. 

In the wake of that epiphany, Martin feels his dimples dig into his cheeks. He must be smiling. It hurts. 

The man hums, noticing the expression, and cocks his head like a broken bud. “Are you happy she’s gone?” 

“No.” It is an honest answer. A simple one. Too simple. And maybe this other man understands that, because his next question is: 

“Do you wish she was still alive?” 

And there it is— the truth of the matter. The one that is not pretty. Martin chuckles, mirthless, and wonders if those ties that bind two people always feel so much like bondage. Maybe so, maybe not; either way, he does not have the energy to pretend he doesn’t enjoy the connection he has to this stranger, corrupt as it might be. 

“Not particularly,” he admits. The other man nods, sympathetic. Leans forward, just a bit, to further press: 

“Do you wish… that you _weren’t_ alive?” 

“I— pardon?” Taken aback, Martin gawps at his companion, more surprised than upset. “Do I _what?_ ” 

Atop Jonathan Sims’ grave, the man shifts: an elegant, full-bodied shrug.

“You have no immediate family, no close friends,” Martin’s companion reasons, idly and without malice. “There are your workmates, I suppose, but you consider them acquaintances, at best. Many in your position would be stymied by loneliness. They might not want to move on at all. So, I ask you again: Do you wish that you weren’t alive?” 

It is the first question that Martin needs to seriously consider. 

“I…” he starts. Stops. Hesitates, studying his spray of stargazer lilies with the same narrow-eyed intensity as previous generations might have the Heavens. Answers cannot be divined from either. Martin scowls. 

“I don’t… want to die,” he decides finally. Carefully. “But I don’t think… that isn’t what you asked, is it?” 

“It is not,” the man affirms. His is a sonorous lilt, a voice that resonates in one’s core: like a hymn in a holy place. Martin can hardly believe he ever forgot it. He wonders, too, how he missed the borage growing around his feet. How he had failed to notice the presence of gardenia cologne. “I asked, Martin Blackwood, if you wished _not to be alive_.”

Martin glances down again at the bouquet he clasps, and is not alarmed to find that it is no longer appropriate for a funeral. 

Tarragon, yarrow, and heliotrope. Purple hyacinth and bluebell stalks, wrapped in feathery ferns. Red, white, and pink camellia. All bound by a chain of forget-me-nots, watching him with golden eyes. 

( _theywatchtheywatchtheywatchthey—_ )

Martin closes his own eyes. Just for a second. Just to gather his thoughts, wild and invasive like so much begonia. “I,” he begins, half-choked on the tangles of something that grows in his throat. “I wish… that is, I— I _wish_ …” 

In his mind, the man’s white chrysanthemum begins to hemorrhage. It gushes and spurts. It dyes and dies and—

Martin’s lashes flutter, opening once more. They are fixed on his mother’s headstone. 

And Martin is alone.

-

(Martin is never alone. He walks upon this earth, doesn’t he? This land that sings the song of kernel and carcass. That thrives on death and lives long after it, and _it is talking to him_ , it _talks_ to him, there are irises growing in a container in his kitchen, and he _did not plant them_.)

-

“Do you ever… think about roots,” Martin mumbles, in that dreamy way he does when conversing with the shop’s backroom plants, “and how they tie a whole… a whole forest into a single, gordian entity? How reflective they are… of the circulatory system? How we’re all j-just… unprocessed compost… and how nice it would be for someone t-to press deep into the depths of us and… lay there until we’ve become one again?”

A throat clears behind Martin. Martin only-just manages to keep hold of his watering can. 

“ _Well_ ,” Tim exclaims, tenaciously cheerful, clapping Martin on the shoulder to prevent him from running away and burying himself alive, “You kind of had me for that second part. But then you lost me again.”

“Oh. Ah. Er— Um.” Outwardly cringing, inwardly screaming, Martin flushes to match a row of nearby columbine. “I— that is, I haven’t been… sleeping well, and— oh my God, please ignore anything you might’ve just—”

“Martin,” Tim interrupts, and it is a mercy, cutting Martin off as one would an ailing branch. “Look. I’ll not dance around it. This past week has been… really rough on you, man. As it would be on anyone! And Sasha and I, we’re here for you. We support you. But… we need to sell to more than just widows, you know?” he says, with a punctuative wink to show that he is kidding. But he isn’t kidding. Not really. Nor is he actually _suggesting_ anything when he adds, “Why don’t you take the next week off? It’s no big deal. Scouts honor. Melanie and Basira can cover your shifts. Okay? So. Get some rest. ‘Cause between us, my guy, you look like death.”

It is not the sort of comment that should make anyone laugh. But it’s either that or cry, as they say, so Martin snorts when his manager hits that nail right atop its head.

_The last nail in the coffin_ , he muses, wry, and drops a pruned hydrangea on Tim’s desk in lieu of saying goodbye.

-

(There is a pain in him— a throbbing and an aching that lances through-under-over- _lives inside_ his skin, one that all the aloe in the world would not-could not heal, even though the feeling burns like something once on fire.

That night, Martin wakes in another cold sweat— heart breaking, flesh blazing— and tries to calm himself with a cup of marigold tea, knowing it to be good for the skin—

But then he remembers that marigold is also _good for the eyes_ , and cannot stop himself from being sick.)

-

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. As Martin watches, the powdered remains of the pills that he had purchased are scattered by the winds, and he finds himself hoping that nothing in that poison brings harm to the kirkyard’s dirt.

Then the man who stands before Jonathan Sims’ grave crushes the remains of the medicine bottle beneath his heel with a _crack_. 

“You were going to kill yourself,” he says in greeting. He does not sound impressed. This strikes Martin as a trifle ironic, though he cannot quite put his finger on why. 

“You’ve only ever shown up after someone died,” Martin explains, trying and failing not to be endeared by the way his companion is kicking offending plastic behind some other, time-eaten headstone, as if the pills will be out of mind as soon as they are out of sight. “And I wasn’t about to, you know. Murder anyone. On the off chance that doing so would summon a ghost. That would just be mean.” 

The man bristles, nose scrunching beneath the bridge of his glasses. “I’m not a _ghost_.”

“Grim reaper?” 

“…closer.” 

“In that case,” Martin says, with a levity that probably makes him seem deranged— but then, it’s quite possible he _is_ now a bit deranged— “I’m doubly glad I didn’t kill someone. Would hate to have stepped on your toes.” 

“Oh? _Those_ are dead, you know,” the man counters, indicating the flowers that Martin had brought along. Half out of habit, and half because— well. Martin did not expect anyone else to put real effort into his funerary bouquet. That having been said, a fistful of valerian probably does not count as a true bouquet. “You killed those. So.” 

The man who is not a ghost, not-quite a grim reaper gesticulates vaguely at himself, and though his hand never comes anywhere near Martin, Martin feels as if he has been hit from behind. _Hard._

(All of Martin’s plants grow too well. The verdure in his care never seems to die, _not unless he kills it_ , and he _knows_ there is a reason for that, he _knows_ , he _knew_ —)

“Did you… Did you not want to see me?” Martin whispers. He sounds frightened. He is frightened. This is the first frightening thought he has had in this place, and he wants nothing more than for the ground to swallow him whole— until the man before him shakes his head. 

“I _did_ want to see you,” he promises. They are standing close enough, now, that Martin can smell the remnants of white clover on his breath. “All I wanted was to see you. Which is exactly why I tried to keep you away.”

The chrysanthemum on the man’s lapel is as tender beneath Martin’s palm as it was on the day that he had bequeathed it. It takes no pressure at all to destroy. 

“Well,” Martin says, focused on the fingers that he drags down, down, down, smearing the ruined chrysanthemum into ruddy stains of salvia, “you’re stuck with me now— er. Whoever you are,” he finishes, a little lamely. 

The hand that lifts to cover Martin’s knots around his wrist: a lifeline in an incomprehensibly literal sense. 

“You know who I am, Martin,” the other man scolds. His voice— _that voice_ — is excruciating in its softness. It is unchanged. He is unchanging. _He is unchanged_. “Just as I know who _you_ are.” 

Tarragon, yarrow, and heliotrope. Purple hyacinth and bluebell stalks, wrapped in feathery ferns. Red, white, and pink camellia. All bound by a chain of forget-me-nots, all lost in an implosion of sclera-white and static. 

“…why?” Martin asks. 

Jonathan Sims does not answer. Martin suspects he does not _have_ an answer. 

“If you stay here,” Jon warns instead, “I will be The End of you.” 

It is the truth, Martin knows. Jon only ever speaks the truth, ugly though it may be. But that is not enough to suppress Martin’s smirk. 

“Am I allowed to make a quip about ‘happy endings?’” 

The joke catches Jon off-guard, an amused huff escaping through his nose. “There are other idioms to which I more readily ascribe,” he intones, loosening his shackle-hold on Martin’s arm. 

“Such as?” 

And this— _this_ is the question that Martin regrets. Jon smiles— a wistful, melancholic thing— before lifting a palm to caress Martin’s cheek. To touch him with a reverence, a _warmth_ , that lingers in Martin’s bones: that smolders deep inside him until his marrow blisters and boils and dries up completely, leaving him hollow. It is the sort of ecstasy that _hurts_ ; it is agonizing to the point of being unendurable. 

It is far too kind to bear. 

“I’ve only ever had… the best of intentions for you,” Jon rasps. His eyes, as ever, are as black as pits, but now Martin sees them for what they are, what they have always been: twin plots. Empty, and open, and lain side-by-side. 

Martin presses a kiss to Jon’s stagnant wrist. 

“That does explain the paving of this road,” he teases, with a nod towards the path that wends along the kirkyard. “Is it to Hell with me, then? Can’t say mum didn’t warn me.” 

This time, Jon cannot stop his laughter from escaping his mouth. Martin delights to catch whiffs of spearmint whilst being assured, “No, Martin. It’s not to Hell that I’ll be taking you.” 

“Then where?”

“Home,” Jon says, twining their hands more tightly than ivy. Martin squeezes back— desperately, _desperately_ — but falters soon after, suddenly on the edge of either déjà vu or vertigo. His vision is tunneling. Or if not _tunneling_ … 

If not a _tunnel_ — 

“Don’t worry,” Jon murmurs before it all goes dark. “I know the way.”

-

(Martin Blackwood leaves the world on a clear-skyed Sunday evening, his brown eyes wide beneath six feet of soil. Still and serene and helplessly snared, he lies in a web of zinnia roots, and he is weeping again. But now— _now_ — he knows _why_. He knows what the irises wanted to say. He knows what waits above him— _who_ waits above him— ready to kill to see Martin thrive, to help him live and live and live and live.

The starburst filaments of a mouthful of myrtle catch between Martin’s teeth when his lips pull back in a smile. 

And that, Martin discovers, only makes him smile _wider_.)

\---

**Author's Note:**

> Language of Flowers, taken from wiki and almanac.com: 
> 
> Almond: Promise  
> Aloe: Affection, also grief  
> Begonia: Beware, dark thoughts  
> Bluebell: Humility  
> Borage: Bluntness, directness  
> Camellia (Pink): Longing For You  
> Camellia (Red): You’re a Flame in My Heart  
> Camellia (White): You’re Adorable  
> Clover (White): I promise; think of me  
> Chrysanthemum (Red): I love you  
> Chrysanthemum (White): Truth, symbol of death  
> Columbine (Red): Anxious, trembling  
> Daisy: Innocence, hope  
> Fern: Humility, sincerity, magic and bonds of love  
> Forget-Me-Not: True love memories, do not forget me  
> Gardenia: Secret love  
> Heliotrope: Eternal love, devotion  
> Hyacinth (White): Loveliness, prayers for someone  
> Hyacinth (Purple): Sorrow  
> Hydrangea: Gratitude for being understood; frigidity and heartlessness  
> Iris: A message  
> Ivy: Friendship, fidelity, marriage  
> Lemon Balm: Sympathy  
> Lichen: Dejection, refusal, solitude  
> Marigold: Despair, grief, jealousy  
> Morning glory: Affection  
> Moss: Charity  
> Myrtle: Good luck and love in a marriage  
> Poppy (Red): Consolation  
> Rhododendron: Danger, beware  
> Rose (Crimson): Mourning  
> Rose (Red): Love, I love you  
> Rosemary: Remembrance  
> Salvia (Red): Forever mine  
> Spearmint: Warmth of sentiment  
> Stargazer Lily (White): Sympathy  
> Tansy: Hostile thoughts, declaring war  
> Tarragon: Lasting interest  
> Valerian: Readiness  
> Willow: Sadness  
> Yarrow: Everlasting love  
> Zinnia: Thoughts of absent friends


End file.
